1 week into driving school...

I've been driving for 3 months and still double clutch. Its what I'm comfortable with. You'll do whatever your comfortable with when you go solo.

As far as downshifting, what I do is downshift when I'm a little lower in speed. Such as ill wait till 20mph to go to 7th. At 20 ill put it in neutral, give it a quick pedal to the floor and release to bump it up about 300-400rpm. It usually slips right in. I grind if i get in a hurry or if I give it to much fuel. Just give it time. My Downshifting wasn't really good till the end of my second week. Just be patient and give it time

 

It takes time and patience, and getting a 'feel' for it.

It could be that you are 'blipping' the throttle either too much or not enough.
Meaning, you are not matching the tranny speed with the engine speed - going either too high or not high enough with the RPM's.

Next time you drive try to notice how high the RPM's are when you grab that lower gear.
If they are lower than what you 'blipped' up to, you are bringing the RPM's up to high.

And as you are grinding the gears, listen.
If the frequency lowers in pitch and then slips into gear, you blipped the RPM's too high.

 

a 10 spd should have about a 400 RPM split between the gears, so if you want to down shift, slow down till your at say 1000rpm, pull it out of gear, rev it too 1400rpm and it'll slide right in.



American Trucker

 

DO NOT go by mph. Every truck I have ever driven is slightly different when it comes to that.

Go by rpm and engine sound.

The tough thing as a rookie starting out, is that each truck is different. You will feel you have mastered a 10 speed, then you'll be in a different truck with a 10 speed and it will feel different. Then you will be in a 9, 13, or 18.

 

And second day on the road??? Don't sweat it, you will get it.

 

I always go by engine sound and I just know what speed to downshift into which gear. It will come with experience but for the test just act like you know what your doing and try not to grind gears too much.

 

One other thing, I remember when first driving, I was a little hesitant when downshifting to rev up the rpms to the proper level when double clutching. Don't be afraid to give it a good kick when downshifting!

 

I don't like the term "rev it up", even though that's how I was taught, after I was taught a 2nd time to "raise it up"...Revving it up is a crap shoot and will cause you to miss and grind more often than finessing it with a smooth controlled 'raising' of the rpms...JMHO, other's may vary...